INDUSTRY BUZZ

Hugh Hart

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, March 18, 2007

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RETRANSMISSION FOR IMPROVED QUALITY--FILE--Film director Stanley Kubrick, seen in this 1988 file picture, has died Sunday, March 7, 1999 at his rural home in England. He was 70. A cause of death has not been released. (AP Photo) RETRANSMISSION FOR IMPROVED QUALITY; 1988 file picture less

RETRANSMISSION FOR IMPROVED QUALITY--FILE--Film director Stanley Kubrick, seen in this 1988 file picture, has died Sunday, March 7, 1999 at his rural home in England. He was 70. A cause of death has not been ... more

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The Kubrick con: In the mid-'90s, an unemployed con artist named Alan Conway passed himself off as director Stanley Kubrick. He borrowed money, cadged free drinks, signed legal documents and picked up men by promising them roles in "his" movies. Eventually exposed by the New York Times' then-film critic Frank Rich, Conway was committed to a mental institution and died in 1998, just four months before Kubrick's death (in March 1999).

In dark-humored tribute to Kubrick and Conway, Brian Cook, assistant director on "Eyes Wide Shut," "The Shining" and "Barry Lyndon," directed "Colour Me Kubrick." Written by Kubrick's longtime personal assistant Anthony Frewin, the film stars John Malkovich as the impostor. Though "Colour Me Kubrick," which opens Friday in the Bay Area, mines the fraud for laughs, Cook says Kubrick was not amused by Conway's antics, which he heard about in the middle of shooting "Eyes Wide Shut."

"Stanley was ticked off. We had loads of people phoning up, asking to speak to Stanley, saying he owed them money, or asking about their film roles, or that he'd had a date with them," Cook says. "We got letters from 'rent boys' in Amsterdam, from all over the place. But there was nothing Stanley could do because we could never get any witnesses to come forward and stand up in court."

If Kubrick were still around to see the film, what might Cook's former boss think of "Colour Me Kubrick"?

"I think he would laugh his head off," Cook says. "He'd say, 'Is that the best you two guys could do after all the years with me?' He had a great, dry sense of humor."

Conway got away with his hoax in large part because Kubrick was so reclusive that few people knew what he looked like. Kubrick spent most of his time on a country estate -- where, Cook says, he preferred tending to preproduction, editing and music over working with actors on set. Recalling the notoriously arduous, 18-month production for "Eyes Wide Shut," Cook remembers the meticulous director demanding take after take from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

"Tom kept coming to me and saying, 'Tell me when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel,' " he says. "And I'd say, 'Tom, we aren't even in the station yet. We haven't got on the train. We're still on the bus.' "

By contrast, Cook models his own approach to directing after Clint Eastwood and Sidney Lumet's famously efficient approach.

"This film is not something that would fall within Stanley's area," he says. "It's just a bit of fun for Tony and me, and hopefully other people will enjoy it."

We'll always have Paris: French filmmaker Danièle Thompson explored modern romance in her 2002 two-character drama "Jet Lag," which starred Juliette Binoche as a woman engaged in an overnight affair with a burned-out businessman during a layover in Paris. With her latest, France's official 2006 Oscar entry "Avenue Montaigne," Thompson expands the canvas with a multi-arc story examining a slew of characters who cross paths at a bustling Parisian cafe.

The filmmaker was inspired to make the film, which opened this weekend in the Bay Area, one afternoon as she stood on Avenue Montaigne, watching crowds spill out of the nearby theaters and hotels.

"There was this amazing traffic within this small area, where the people come and go, and very different worlds collide," Thompson says. "Artists, stagehands, art lovers and dealers, people who would never ordinarily meet, walk side by side."

Her brother Christopher, who co-wrote the film, says the "novelistic possibilities" were endless.

"It became a challenge we set ourselves," he says, "to make a movie almost exclusively set in one place."

Digital daze: On Thursday at ShoWest, DLP Cinema Products executives planned to trot out their annual "$100 million reel" for exhibitors and studio types, demonstrating a striking momentum for digital-cinema releases. In 2006, all of the year's 18 movies earning $100 million or more were released in digital formats, compared with 35 percent of 2005's box-office hits. Theater chains are accelerating their conversion to new projection systems in part because of 3-D releases.

Enabled by digital-cinema technology, the format is gaining ground as a moneymaker, says DLP business manager Nancy Fares.

"Disney people say that on a per-screen basis, their 3-D releases have grossed three times what they make on their regular film releases," she says. "Those numbers speak loudly."

Last fall, Disney rereleased its 3-D version of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 400 venues. For its animated "Meet the Robinsons," coming out March 30, the studio is ramping up for more than 700 3-D screens.

DLP believes old-fashioned theaters are reinventing themselves for a digital future that may not be confined to movies.

"Alternative content is the next big thing for the exhibitors to make money on," Fares says. "When screens are not used for the major movie bookings, theaters can now use that screen to show NASCAR races, music concerts -- just about anything. ... If you don't live in New York, you don't get to see the Metropolitan Opera or original Broadway shows. In the near future, you could maybe go to a local theater and see that on the big screen. It's all enabled by digital cinema equipment. Before, you just didn't have that option."